US Financial Stocks Catching Up To Credit Weakness

We noted last week that credit spreads (particularly for financials in Europe and the US) were deteriorating rapidly. In Europe we saw financial stocks hold and then drop to catch up and once again today we see them holding up as credit drops further. In the US, from yesterday's gap up open exuberance, the major financials are significantly underperforming as they catch up to the ugly reality of the credit markets. Morgan Stanley and Citi are down 6% from yesterday's opening level, BofA and Goldman are down 3.5-4% and Wells Fargo is tracking the financial ETF (XLF) down around 2%. Even JPMorgan is down 1.4%. Several of these names are retesting their 200DMAs from above and volumes are picking up.